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February 3, 1959 Homer Jordan (white) 3456 Edison Avenue Jacksonville, Florida (Salesman & installment collector: furniture, clothing, burial insurance; Negro customers) Stetson Kennedy, writer
MISTER HOMER
Homer likes Negroes, and Negroes like Homer. Some of them even have children for him. He is one of those most-Americans, a "genu-wine Florida cracker." Born on a small farm near Dinsmore, he left school after the fourth grade to help with the chores. When he was sixteen his father died; the farm was sold and he and his mother moved to Jacksonville.
Since then, for twenty-five years, he has been selling furniture, clothing, and burial insurance to Negroes, often for nothing down and about fifty cents per week. His competitors, whom he consistently outsells, call him "nigger-lover." Homer replies simply that a dollar is a dollar, regardless of the color of its former owners.
Some of his attitudes towards Negroes are perhaps representative of the attitudes of Southern white tenant farmers, wage workers, unemployed.
I accompany him as he makes his rounds in the Negro sections. Skillfully he manoeuvers his battered automobile through the deep sand ruts and the dunes at street crossings.
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The Negro shacks are dilapidated and unpainted; very few have plumbing, but are equipped with pump and sink on the back porch, and an outhouse.
Homer is almost continuously blowing the horn at his Negro friends. A powerfully-built young man leaps from the path of the automobile, frowns at first, then recognizes Homer and grins.
"Look out dere Mister Homer!" he shouts.
As we turn a corner Homer suddenly jams on the brakes. A gray-haired Negro man is leaning on the fence.
"Well I'll be hanged!" Homer says to him. "l thought you was dead and in hell long ago! And here ya is lookin younger than ever. How many women ya keepin now Uncle Henry?"
The old Negro laughs. "Gawn Mister Homer--you knows ah's too old for dat. Whur you been keepin yourself? Ah ain seed ya sinst de woods was burned."
"Oh I been roun," says Homer. "How's Mary? And all them fine granchillern--nearbout growed I guess?"
"Yassuh, dey growed all right. But times is hard wid dem, like everbody else."
"Well Henry, here's my card. Better not lemme hear of you buyin from nobody but me."
"Yassuh Mister Homer. Ifen ah gits any money ahead ah'11 send for ya."
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"You look out fer them women now Henry," warns Homer as we drive away.
"l don't see how you remember so many faces, " I remark.
"Rememberin niggers' names and faces and famlies and troubles is what keeps me in bizness."
"You must remember a great deal--they have such large families and so many troubles."
"The two go tagether," he says, shifting gears to second to pull through the deep dry sand. "What beats me is why niggers ain a heap sight worse than they is. They puts up with more than I blieve any other race of people could stand. The nigger's cursed. The Bible says so. Cursed like the mule--the mule kaint reproduce its kind. Course the nigger can do thet awright...it's a good thing, cause it keeps em satisfied. But the mule and the nigger ain got no spirit-- they was meant ta work. Jus lookin at a nigger you can see he's cursed. He's cursed cause he's black--"
"What about the Chinese?" I interrupt. "Are they cursed because they're yellow?"
"Well...no. Yeller is the Chink's nachul color. But niggers ain like other peoples. They got no damn brain! Their heads is too thick--ya kaint hardly kill a nigger by beatin him in the head. Ya ever seen a nigger worry? Ya never will. Ya watch one set down with his mind all made up ta worry bout sumpum another, and first thing ya know he'll be fast asleep!"
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"Perhaps that's a good thing." "Yeah. Maybe so. I wisht I could do more sleepin and less worryin myself. Ifen it ony took as little ta make me happy as it does a nigger..." "You said Negroes aren't very intelligent. What about all the prominent Negro educators, doctors, lawayers, writers, and other professional men?" "Every nigger whas got any sense is got it cause he's got some white blood in him." "Do you know that psychologists have tried to discover if there are any differences in the intelligences of whites and Negroes, and that they haven't found any that might not be attributable to a difference in cultural factors?" "Thet might be true. All I'm a-sayin is that there is differences--I ain a-claimin ta know what causes em." We stop in front of a rickety and abandoned-looking frame house. Scrawled near the door with a pieces of chalk I see: THIS OLD SCHOOL IS 43 YEARS OLD. There are no screens over the windows, and the glass panes are broken. Children of all ages are barely visible in the gloomy one-room interior. "What are you going to do here?" I ask. "Tryn collect on a oil stove I sold the teacher. She owes for three weeks now. Generly when one of my customers misses two weeks I ties their tail in a knot. But these
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teachers don't git paid reglar—half the time they works fer nothin. I don't never aim ta sell nothin ta no nigger teachers no more." He strides up to the door, and is met by a young woman. "I'm so sorry to have to put you off again. Mister Homer," she says, "but I haven't received my check as yet. This makes three months now, and if I wasn't living with my mother I don't know what I would do. I called up the school board about it yesterday, and they said they weren't sure when the checks would be mailed. But just as soon as I receive it I certainly will call you, first thing." "All right. Sister Singleton," says Homer. "You know I'm bein mighty good ta you. It's very seldom I lets an account git this far in arrears. You got sense anuff ta know I kaint give stoves away. I'm gonna wait on ya a little while longer, but I'm dependin on ya ta have some money fer me the nex time I come out here." "I'll do the very best I can," she promises, "and I certainly appreciate your being so lenient with me." He walks slowly back to the car, and we jolt on our way. After a few minutes of silence. Homer suddenly exclaims: "A nigger's got no more use with schoolin than he is with a airplane! Whas he gonna do with it? Thas one of the things ruinin em now. They goes ta school awhile and first thing ya know they done decided they don't wanna work. They git so
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